Master Plan
by Marston Chicklet
Summary: Better to die in cupcake than live the flavourless existence of peasant bread.


**Notes:** Written in response to scentofautumn's request on Livejournal for fluffy Lumione.

* * *

I make an attempt to sound engaged in my argument with Dolores Umbridge, all the while thinking, You, my dear burocrat, are an expansive vision in pink crinoline, a middle-aged ballerina lacking only in grace and skill, the evil stepsister whose lips drip with the sounds of toads. In a word, despicable

Nevertheless, Malfoys are eternally interested in the percentage that they are being taxed, which galleons must be slipped under the floorboards, what may be reasonably claimed as maintenance of a historical building, and the virulence of my words would make many an ancestor proud. Always, polite, though, for I must let only rubies fall from my lips; I twist a ring around my finger, insinuating that she may have diamonds of her own one day, but only if she listens closely.

It is no use; the woman is incorruptible, forever focused on her quest to smother the world in lace, to drown us in heavy lavender perfume, to choke us with the saccharine of icing in the name of all that is sweet and proper and for the greater good. She is nothing more or less powerful than a robot made of rock sugar, programmed to destroy.

I glance across the room to where Granger is directing a group of wide-eyed interns; she tires of giving them instructions after a minute and flaps her clipboard in the universal language of Office: Stop wasting my bloody time and earn your sodding paycheque. I, of course, have never had to work for a living, but I have picked up a few of the common phrases as a survival tactic. Quill tapping on parchment: Where are my underlings when my quarterly reviews are due? Hands twisting in rage: I'd like to be wringing your neck, but the Head of the Auror department is down the corridor by the water cooler.

Except for the flyaway bits of hair, Granger is tidy—obsessively so, really. Drab dress robes hemmed to fall perfectly, touches of makeup to take away the signs of lack of sleep, and, most depressingly, sensible black shoes with laces and just enough heel to make her advance sound alarming. Compulsion is the first sign of madness in a government worker, and her organisation could be the beginning of a transition into a second coming of Dolores, a shift into a new reign of order and law and no more loopholes in the tax system for the privileged to leap through. She'll rip up the floorboards, find the secret rooms in the oldest of pureblood manors, and crush the centuries-old tradition of political subversion, of dodging the Ministry's advances and dislodging those foolish enough to challenge our unofficial reign.

Better to die in cupcake than live the flavourless existence of peasant bread.

Those sensible shoes click towards me along the hallowed halls of lies and deceit, and I shudder, knowing that she will bring in paid workers instead of House-elves to scrub the floors free of prejudice and misconduct. It will all be perfectly sensible and entirely fruitless; the corruption has seeped into the stone.

"Mr Malfoy isn't bothering you, is he, Dolores?" Steel in her voice, binding blind hatred together and holding it beneath her skin.

"Certainly not, Hermione. We were just discussing the finer points of the Godric's Hollow Amendment of 1637."

She narrows her eyes at me, perhaps a touch in awe of my ability to invent supporting documents as needed, perhaps a touch in loathing at my lack of respect for all that she holds sacred. "Mr Malfoy, I have your forms sitting on my desk, and should have them reviewed by tomorrow morning, should you care to make an appointment. You may Floo my assistant."

I smooth back my hair, pulling my most effective polite mask into place. "Miss Granger, surely an appointment is unnecessary—I can't recall anything that would require an involved review."

Hover over the final words an extra moment, flick my eyes down into a leer—that's it, exactly it. Let her know what I think of those revolting clothes, how I want to tear them off and wrap her in decadence.

She flushes, but recovers before it can creep higher than her collarbone.

"I assure you that an appointment is indeed required." She fumbles in her pocket for a moment. "Allow me to give you my card. My assistant's contact information is on the back."

A stiff incline of the head to both of us and she is gone, pounding her heels into the stone floor and herding her flock of interns once again with the clipboard.

———

I see Dolores Umbridge again in the evening, when only the most diligent Ministry employees are still behind their desks with mapped-out deadlines and beads of sweat form on their upper brow as they contemplate the Ministry rat in the next cubicle over being promoted above them. She is still a vision in pink—the sort of vision that wakes one up in the middle of the night to ensure that it was nothing more substantial, but her blouse is different and her head is lacking the hat that closely resembled a fuchsia doily. She enters the café and slides into the seat across from me—more graceful than she was this morning.

"Hello, Lucius," she says, and perhaps it is the wishful thinking of a desperate man, but she seems anxious to talk to me. Almost anticipatory.

"I take it you've done your part?"

A grimace twitches at the corners of her mouth and spreads, horrible and gaping. It takes a minute to realise that this is the Umbridgian rendition of a conspiratorial grin. "Seventy thousand galleons to be transferred to the account of Dolores Jane Umbridge from the Ministry, to take effect immediately. You have the key to her vault, I trust?"

My smile, I am certain, is less terrible, more charming. "My dear, do you really believe that I could spend five minutes in a woman's chambers without discovering all of her secrets? You grossly underestimate my talents."

A barely perceptible shudder runs through her. "Oh, Lucius. Please say that you didn't actually..."

"Consummate the one-sided lust? Of course not; I merely spoke in honeyed tongues and let her own vanity guide her into flurrying fits of ecstasy. And used a touch of sleight of hand to invade the inner recesses of her desk."

I push the key across the table. She pinches it between her thumb and forefinger and narrows her eyes at it for a moment, before smiling again. "If you will excuse me, I feel that a trip to Gringotts is in order."

———

We celebrate in a Paris hotel: celebrate the downfall of Dolores Umbridge, inevitably to be followed by the revelation of Gilbert Wimple's complete and utter incompetence as Minister of Magic. A half-consumed bottle of champagne lies abandoned on the night table and her hair, no longer tied back in an attempt to convince the world of her severity, coils and pools on my chest. Her hideously practical robes are in a crumpled heap on the floor, and her head is bowed, obscuring her face from view, but I can imagine that the harsh set of it has been smoothed out—except for the eternal furrowing of her brow, a dead giveaway to the fact that a part of her is always racing ahead to the next moment, anticipating, predicting...

"You're thinking of Kingsley," I say, and raise my eyebrows into perfect arches of practiced disdain.

She raises her head, and her hair with it until only the tips brush my skin, painting tingling circles where it sways. "As man, or as our future Minister of Magic?"

I know the answer, just as I know that she can't help but be elsewhere; she breathes the air of do-goodery, worships at the altar of justice, and is sustained by the waters of endless work. In anyone else it would be pitiful, but in her it is terrifying.

As if to distract me from this line of thought, she shifts and for a moment all that raises to my lips are gasping nouns: "Minx—tease—bitch—temptress _most_ glorious—"

She cuts me off with a breathless laugh, and I can see her eyes focus, lock into position. "You must tell me if your flattery ever works, because I'm really not impressed."

My howl of rage meets another laugh, and we grapple for a moment before she gives in and I flip her over. Concentration is replaced by an expression that would be comical if I cared to mock her, but I don't. And in a moment, I can no longer see her face anyway; I have collapsed forward onto her, and buried my face in the space of pillow beside her throat.

I was mistaken: she is not an Umbridge come to scrub us clean of our filth. Her plan is to dismantle us, stone by stone, and then build us up again, she craves the fight, not the result, and thinks that I will fight her every step of the way—and I will. She knows that, slowly, gradually, so that I hardly notice it, she will win the battles, and then the war, and I will be her tool, her proof that even the most corrupt can be capable of the right thing. And she knows that I will do it freely, happily, even; she will not have to feel guilt over forcing my hand.

Ironic that she scoffs at divination, given her gift for prophecy.


End file.
